Thursday, January 28, 2010

(UPI) -- Firefighters in Tennessee said a 75-year-old woman was shocked when she was awakened by a boulder the size of a small car crashing through her bedroom wall.

Authorities said Elizabeth Allred was sleeping in a hospital bed in her Rogersville home while recovering from a broken hip when the boulder crashed through the wall, sending her wheeled bed rolling across the room, the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times reported.

"This wasn't a gravel. This was a very large rock, and it broke loose from a bank above the apartment," Rogersville Fire Chief David Jackson said. "It was dark and pouring down rain, and I don't know if it rolled or slid, but it came off of the embankment beside the building. It rolled or slid into the end of the apartment."

Jackson said Allred, who was taken to Hawkins County Memorial Hospital, was startled by her ordeal but not seriously injured.

"I asked her what she thought was happening, and she said she thought it was a train," Jackson said.